Whether it is to push my long-form posts (only 300 readers on average, where my short shares often exceed 4000 views…), or to suggest contacts to be invited to join my network, I don’t always understand how LinkedIn algorithms work.
Or do I understand too much ?
My 2000th contact/follower (this morning) is a brilliant young woman, with very high skills in mathematics, working as a financial risk manager for a big french insurer. I guess she is a good representative of people I am in contact with or who follow me. I thank her, and all of you with her, even if I must confess that I would love to see LinkedIn suggest me to contact different profiles sometimes.
I stop here with LinkedIn analytics !
In my posts, I try to be consistent with the “values” I highlighted on my LinkedIn profile : benevolence, courage, engagement and transmission. Hannah Arendt hated this notion of “values” she thought should be reserved to bankers :-). It’s why I prefer to use the expression “keywords” or “promise”…
As LinkedIn is supposed to be a “professional” network, and even if I always post in my personal capacity, I should try as much as possible to focus on the heart of my job : public policies in the field of Banking and Finance. But I am convinced that, despite they are very technical, these policies are at the heart of the choices that our societies need to make to build their future. And Finance has, whether we love it or not, a lot to do with the future.
And in a world dominated by short-term behaviour, plot theories, alternative facts, it’s impossible to think these choices without referring to literature or arts too. And also sometimes to the personal events you have to face in your own personal life. It’s why I make so many digressions, exploring subjects which can seem far away from public policies in the field of Banking and Finance.
Algorithms don’t know to deal with that obviously.
My preferred French poet, René Char, wrote the following: “Impose ta chance, serre ton bonheur et va vers ton risque. A te regarder, ils s’habitueront.”
In English, it could be translated as (apologize, Mr Char ! ) : « Impose your chance, be attached to your happiness and go towards your risk. Looking at you, they will get used to it ».
And even if my long-form posts are not pushed by LinkedIn algorithms as they should, I will stick to this “editorial line”. And who knows ? Maybe at some stage, LinkedIn algorithms will get used to this approach !
Iconography :Hacker binary attack code, May 2018, Erlangen, Germany, © Markus Spiske
After working as an international banker for emerging countries, Laurent Lascols became global head of country risk / sovereign risk (from 2008 to 2013) then global director of public affairs (from 2014 to 2019) for Societe Generale. In 2021, he founded Aristote, an advisory firm and training organization dedicated to environmental economics, sustainable finance and impact finance.